The Loma Prietan
March/April 2005
Cooking Green: Moving away from the meat habit
By Kay Bushnell
If you want to eat a plant-based diet but
feel challenged to change your longstanding
food habits, you are fortunate. This
may be the best time in history to make the
change. Moving toward food choices that
support caring, sustainable stewardship
and health for the earth, for people, and for
animals has never been easier.
Nearly everyone today has heard of
non-dairy "ice cream" and meatless "burgers,"
"sausages," "hot dogs," "chicken
nuggets," and sliced "turkey." Many folks
have tasted them and enjoy them regularly.
If you don't have time to cook, you'll
find a large variety of plant-based convenience
foods that merely require adding
water or popping them into the
microwave. Organic vegetables and fruits
from supermarkets, farmers' markets, or
your home garden can round out a meal
based on meatless convenience foods.
The transition to a plant-based diet
can be very easy, and you will be encouraged
as you see the beneficial results.
Dean Ornish, M.D., the cardiologist
whose studies showed that heart disease
can be reversed with a low fat plant-based
diet, suggests making "comprehensive
changes" (a complete, quick transition to
a plant-based diet) in order to enjoy maximum
health benefits sooner. For our
family, the transition to a plant-based diet
was gradual. We reduced the amount of
red meat we consumed until we stopped
eating it altogether. Next we eliminated
chicken and eggs, then dairy products. It
became easier and easier.
As we eliminated animal foods from
our meals we replaced them with delicious
new plant-based recipes. I learned easy
new ways to cook and bake with the help
of 100% plant-based cookbooks. The
ubiquitous eggs in traditional recipes were
left out or replaced with EnerG Egg
Replacer. Cow's milk was replaced with
soy milk or rice milk. Soy-based cheese
and yogurt alternatives took the place of
cow's cheese and cow's yogurt. At this
point we all noticed a significant drop in
our cholesterol numbers.
My plant-based cookbooks provided
not only new ways to produce superb
meals but also introduced our family to
new tastes in American and ethnic cuisines.
Not all my attempts then or today were
successful, but most of them were. We felt
good about our new way of eating.
The transition to eating more plantbased
meals and fewer meals that contain
meat has been a gentle one. It has been
easy to improve many of our favorite family
recipes by simply leaving out the meat
or replacing it with a meat substitute,
nuts, or beans. I have discovered that nuts
can be used in a wide variety of ways that
had never before occurred to me. Tasty,
nutritious lentils of various colors have
appeared in our stews, dals, soups, salads,
and pates. Beans that used to seem boring
now star in meals, and I've learned from
from the meat habit
cookbooks how to make sure that they are
digestible for everyone.
No longer is my family fooled by televised
commercials designed to worry
people about protein and calcium. We
have learned that both protein and calcium
are widely available in a plant-based
diet that includes a variety of grains,
legumes, vegetables, fruits, and nuts.
Nor do we have to eat special combinations
of foods to meet our protein needs.
Our old fondness for cow's cheese that
we once thought we could never lose has
simply disappeared. Meals are simple
and much more interesting than before.
We eat a greater quantity of food than
before yet our weight has stabilized at a
healthy level.
We are fortunate to have friends who
also are interested in a plant-based diet.
It's fun to share meals and recipes with
them. All in all, the transformation of our
family's meals into delicious plant-based
feasts has been a piece of cake — egg-free
and dairy-free, of course.
Books such as The New Becoming
Vegetarian and Becoming Vegan, both by
Brenda Davis, R.D. and Vesanto Melina,
R.D., and the set of helpful information
sheets on vegetarian nutrition from the
American Dietetic Association provide
excellent nutritional guidelines for meal
planning. (To order the set send a check
for $25 made out to DPG#14 to Kristine
Duncan, MS, RD, 1307 Sudden Valley,
Bellingham, WA 98229.)
Busy Person's Gourmet Pasta Sauce
This recipe demonstrates how a commercial
convenience food can be the basis of a simple
meal or a formal banquet. The addition of just
one Tofurky Sweet Italian Sausage, one onion,
and one can of sliced olives to a commercial
pasta sauce transforms it into a gourmet sauce in
minutes.
3/4 lb. pasta (bow tie, spaghetti, linguine)
1/2 lb. meatless, dairy-free ravioli (such as San
Francisco Pasta Company’s Vegetarian
Ravioli)
1 yellow onion, in 1” dice
1 2.25-oz. can sliced black olives, drained
1 Tofurky Sweet Italian Sausage (meatless)
1 25.5 oz. jar of Muir Glen Organic Tomato
Basil Pasta Sauce (or other commercial
meatless, dairy-free pasta sauce)
Cook the
pasta and ravioli
according to the
package’s directions,
drain them, and
combine them with 1 Tbsp. olive oil. Set aside.
In a medium saucepan braise the onion in a
little water until the onion is soft and translucent.
Add the pasta sauce, black olives, and meatless
sausage. Bring the sauce to a boil and simmer for
a few minutes. Warm pasta and place it on individual
serving plates or in a large pasta bowl.
Sprinkle with chopped walnuts and/or non-dairy
Parmesan Cheese Alternative. The walnut topping
is especially tasty.
—Copyright, Kay Bushnell